How The Purge Created a Kick-Ass Band of Women with The Matron Saints

We’re halfway through USA’s 10-episode event series The Purge, and one group in particular has captured our imaginations. Of course, we’re talking about the Matron Saints. Here's a little from Purge creator James Demonaco on their backstory...

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How The Purge Created a Kick-Ass Band of Women with The Matron Saints

Posted on 10/9/18

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We’re halfway through USA’s 10-episode event series The Purge, and one group in particular has captured our imaginations. Of course, we’re talking about the Matron Saints, the pack of vigilantes who take to the streets on Purge Night and rescue women in need -- or as their member Marge (Jannette Sepwa) explains it, they “protect the females of this fair nation against the gender-cide of The Purge.”

When we first meet them, the Matron Saints scoop up Jane (Amanda Warren) who is in the middle of being drugged by a creepy stranger in an alleyway. Shortly after, when Jane is safely in their motorhome, we learn some of the horrifying stats about women on Purge night: every three women are killed for each man and sexual assaults are in the tens of thousands during the annual Purge -- and those are just the ones that get reported. Enter the Matron Saints who “just want to level the playing field.”

We reached out to Purge creator James Demonaco to get more info on the Matron Saints. Here are three cool things we learned.

Demonaco came up with the idea in his first pitch

The idea of a kick-ass band of women protecting fellow females in distress on Purge Night came from Demonaco in his first pitch of the TV show. The Purge writer and executive producer Krystal Ziv eventually named them the Matron Saints in the writer's room.

There are two main reasons Jane doesn’t join them

According to Demonaco, Jane has both practical and philosophical reasons for not joining the Matron Saints. One, she needs to leave them in order to stop the assassination of her boss and, two, she questions the Matron Saints’ use of force against men. As we learn throughout the season, Jane wrestles with her own conflicted emotions about using violence on Purge night to stop injustice.

You can imagine Lena Headey’s character from the first movie as an original member

Demonaco once thought about the Mary Sandin (Lena Headey) character from the first Purge movie as the founder/creator of the Matrons -- having formed the group after losing her husband James (Ethan Hawke). Headey, however, was unavailable because of her Game of Thrones schedule, so the team never went further with this idea. Still, we can picture it -- and we're into it!

Ready for more of The Purge TV series? New episodes air every Tuesday night, this fall on USA Network!